Grief
by 0asissss
Summary: When she was asleep, it was just a nightmare; when she was awake, it was reality.
**Hello again. So after the finale of season five, I threw a little bit of a fit, decided I was done with Teen Wolf (there was disappointment in more than just the content of the episode/season as a whole) and deleted all the content I had on here. Alas, I am in love with the show again (though still frustrated, don't get me wrong) so the writing is back again :) Pray that I am less immature in the future.**

 **(About the cover image - I _love_ the Scydia friendship. They make a great team, and it's obvious on the show they really care for each other as friends. The picture [not mine] is from 3x09 and I loved that moment between them, where they grabbed each other's hands. Ah!)**

 **Follow, favorite, review, enjoy!**

* * *

She had had her share of nightmares, but that once certainly topped the list. Dark druids with mutilated faces materializing out of every shadow, red-eyed monsters with foot-long fangs eating her alive, past lovers with human eyes and serpent bodies slithering into her bed, the ever-present flashbacks of hospital clothes, scummy white walls, and the silent hell of catatonia… but that terrifying vision of Stiles… was by far the worst she'd ever had.

She wasn't sure what woke her, but when she came to and realized she was standing on the side of the road, halfway to his house, soaked in rain… she wished she could go back to the nightmare. When she was asleep, it was just a nightmare; when she was awake, it was reality.

"Lydia?" Scott called, jumping out of his car and starting toward her. She heard his voice through a fog, like there was a barrier between her and total wakefulness. "Are you all right?"

" _Lydia_?"

"No," she whispered, but she wasn't sure if she was answering Scott's question or if she was calling to the haunting voice she heard in her head.

"Lydia, can you hear me?"

" _Can you see me_?"

"No," she whispered again.

"Lydia?!" Scott cried.

" _Of course not. You never did._ "

"No," she said, louder. "No!"

"Lydia, what's happening?" He was well aware of what was happening, though, and he was terrified of it.

"Stiles," she breathed, and then she opened her mouth and screamed.

#

Scott had never driven so fast – not in the rain, and not in his mother's car. A banshee had whispered his best friend's name before letting out the eeriest scream he'd ever heard, though, so nothing mattered – not speed limits, not inclement weather, not his mother's rules. Nothing mattered but getting to Stiles in time.

Lydia was sobbing, desperately calling the sheriff over and over on Scott's phone, but she never got through to him.

They never got through, and they didn't get there in time. They turned the corner onto Stiles' road, and Scott nearly started screaming himself when they saw the red and blue and white lights. Police and ambulance.

"Scott!" Lydia cried, grabbing his shoulder. "Scott!"

"No, no, no," he prayed, louder and louder with each cry of denial. "No! No!"

He almost jumped out of the car without parking it, but he somehow managed it, and flew up the driveway toward the house. The sheriff was sitting on the ground, leaning back against the front tire of his car, talking to another deputy, and holding his head in his hands.

The front door was wide open, and Scott listened, straining desperately to find it, but he knew. He knew that none of the heartbeats he heard inside the house were the one he was searching for.

"Sheriff!" he cried. It was a statement and a question and a plea all at the same time.

The sheriff looked up at him, and Scott knew his face was wet with _tears_ , not rain.

"Scott," he whispered, and it was a statement and an apology and a warning all at the same time.

Just then, the paramedics wheeled the stretcher out of the house, and Scott had to hold on to the back of the car to keep from falling to his knees. The body was covered in a white sheet, but he could just barely see the fingers on the right hand hanging off the stretcher. Even if he couldn't see the black marks, he could smell it.

Gunpowder.

He heard the rain pelting the vehicles in the yard. He heard the chatter of the police radios. He heard the paramedics muttering harsh, judgmental things about the boy on the stretcher. He heard Lydia fall to the ground in front of his car, screaming and screaming – not a banshee scream, like the one that had woken him up and urged him to find her, or the one that had sealed his brother's fate, but a scream of soul-splitting grief and pain.

He heard everything, and as he stood there feeling like he'd just lost a limb, he wondered why the only thing he couldn't hear was his best friend's cry for help.

#

The pack congregated at the hospital, but it almost didn't feel worth the effort. It wouldn't change anything. Scott, Lydia, Kira, Liam, Mason, and Malia sat in the waiting room of Beacon Memorial, with Agent McCall, Melissa, Mrs. Martin, Noshiko, Dr. Guyer, Mr. Tate, and Sheriff Stilinski standing around them. The parents were trying to figure out how to comfort their children. The kids were trying to figure out if they were awake, and how they were going to move forward, live, _survive_ , without Stiles.

It was nearly four-thirty when they all got there, and they left, one-by-one, as the sun crawled high and higher into the sky, shedding light on a town that had grown infinitely darker overnight.

Noshiko and Kira left first. Noshiko put her hand on Scott's shoulder, silently blessing the boy she loved like a son, and Kira kissed the top of his head, begging him to call if he needed anything, and hugged Lydia tightly, kissing her on the cheek. To Lydia, she wasn't quite the best friend Allison was, but they were sisters all the same.

Mr. Tate and Malia left next, not long after. Mr. Tate wasn't considered one of the pack parents, but his heart, albeit still a bit cold, went out to the kids, and to his daughter, who had just started to feel genuine human love… only to have it snatched away in a split second.

Dr. Guyer took Liam and Mason home against their will. Liam didn't want to leave his alpha, but his father insisted they go home and sleep.

"If there's anything I can do, Scott, anything at all –"

"It's okay. I know, Liam. Go home. Rest. I know," Scott said, trying his best to form complete sentences and only coming up with broken words.

Mason tried to think of something to say, but could only whisper an apology. He was the only human left in the pack, and he was frightened of the void that Stiles left. He was frightened by how broken his pack was.

Agent McCall left at about noon, insisting he bring them back something to eat, and some pillows and blankets if they really weren't going to go home. Mrs. Martin went home at Lydia's urging, leaving Melissa, Stilinski, Scott, and Lydia in the waiting room.

Neither one of them said anything until Agent McCall dropped off the food, blankets, and pillows and left again. Scott and Lydia were clinging to each other; she was leaning against him, his arm was around her shoulders, and he was holding her hands. The sheriff was finding the same comfort in Melissa; she had one hand resting on his shoulder and the other on his knee.

Scott was the first to speak. "Where's Parrish?" he asked, unsure if the question was directed to Lydia or Stilinski.

"He hasn't said anything to me," Lydia muttered, and her voice was dry and raspy like all the life had been sucked out of it.

"He's holding down the station for me," the sheriff said, and added, "I told him it's best he let us be for a while."

"You told my boyfriend to stay away?" Lydia whispered, but it was too weak to be an accusation.

Her eyes were closed, so she didn't see the look he gave Scott – the look that said, "He is part of the reason."

#

Scott and Lydia spent the night in the hospital, in a double-bed room Melissa opened up for them. The sheriff stayed at Scott's house, and Agent McCall drove back up to San Francisco. Melissa had to work, but everyone agreed it was best because she could keep an eye on the two kids.

They didn't sleep much. Lydia was too scared by her nightmares, and Scott was too worried about her. He could only close his eyes when she closed hers.

They reluctantly went home in the morning. Everyone in the pack had texted both of them at least once, and Scott made some loose plans for everyone to get together at Kira's house the next night.

Scott dropped Lydia off at her house, but before he let her go, he stopped the car in her driveway and rested his hand on her knee.

"Are you okay?" he asked, turning to her.

She just leaned back in the seat and looked at him, but not in a sassy or sarcastic way – more like she had no answer except the sadness in her eyes.

"You know what I mean by that. It's okay… to not be okay. None of us are _okay_ , but… if I leave you here, are you going to be all right?"

"I'm not alone, Scott, my mom's here."

"I know that. I'm just… worried. I don't want to leave anyone alone right now, you know? You're… part of my pack, you're my beta, but… you're also my friend."

She rested her hand on top of his. "Can you stand being alone right now?"

He was taken aback by the question, but his response was immediate. "I'm the alpha. I take care of you guys. Don't worry about me."

"I'm not asking as your beta. I'm asking as your friend, Scott, you just said it yourself."

He opened his mouth to say something, but she squeezed his hand, just slightly.

"Scott, he was your brother," she whispered.

He sighed, and tears started to well up in his eyes, but he pushed them away. "I need to worry about keeping my pack strong before I worry about myself."

"What about your _friends_ , Scott?" she snapped, but not angrily – almost imploringly. "What about your friends? We're not just members of your pack. We are your _friends_. You didn't just lose a pack member, Scott, you lost your _brother_!"

"And maybe I won't be okay!" he shot back. "Maybe I won't, but what's gonna keep me going is knowing you guys need me. We're friends before we're pack members. I know that. It's still important that I'm your alpha. I _can't_ let you guys down, and I _can't_ put my needs before yours."

She sighed and leaned back again, and so did he, but they kept their hands where they were.

"I'm definitely going to need help, Lydia," he whispered, "but taking care of you guys will help me."

"You can't be a leader if you're broken, Scott," she said softly. "So if you truly need us, be selfish and ask for our help _for you_."

With that, she tore her hand away, stepped out of the car, and disappeared, leaving him to recall all the years he knew her but didn't _know_ her, when she was a queen bee and not a banshee. He couldn't have dreamed back then of the day Lydia Martin would call him her friend.

Of course, he thought to himself, he could never in his life have dreamed of the day Stiles Stilinski would kill himself, but that was fate, he supposed.

#

The sheriff was sitting on the couch when Scott got home, holding his head in his hands just like the other night. He sat up when Scott came into the living room, but didn't say anything.

Scott thought to greet him, to ask him how he was doing, to say… _something_ , but nothing felt right. Nothing felt appropriate and nothing felt right, and he thought to himself as he sat down next to Stilinski that maybe nothing ever would again. Leaning against the older man's shoulder and crying as they wrapped their arms around each other… didn't exactly feel _right_ , but… at least it didn't feel wrong.

#

The sheriff didn't go back home until Melissa came home from the hospital, and even then he asked Scott to go with him.

"I think I know why he did this, but I want to look through… and see if I can't find some answers. Besides, I know I can't put this off as long as I did with Claudia. I was hoping you could help me."

"Of course," he said, even though he really didn't want to. He wasn't sure if he could bear stepping into the room Stiles used to occupy but never would again.

He had no choice, though. He promised he'd help the sheriff, so he held back his tears as he walked into the bedroom of a ghost. It was colder, and it seemed emptier. The bathroom door was closed, and even though no one told him, he knew why.

 _It happened in there._

He felt something pulling him toward the detective board the second he walked in, and the more he tried to ignore it, the stronger the pull got. About an hour into looking through the pictures on his wall and the journals in his bottom drawer – one of them was completely filled with the pleas and rantings of void Stiles as he wavered back and forth from human to nogitsune, and it made Scott sick to read – he finally told himself he couldn't ignore it.

He walked over to the board, and he saw it immediately: a folded-up piece of paper, tied with red yarn, with someone's name on it. He pulled the tape off, and held it up so Stilinski could see.

"Is this what you were talking about when you said you thought you knew why?"

With a sad, sad look in his eyes, he nodded.

"This is also why you told Parrish to stay away for a little while."

The sheriff nodded again.

Scott turned the note over and over in his hands, debating and debating. After a moment, he turned back to the sheriff and asked, "Do you mind if I… run this over to her? I really think she needs to see it. I promise I'll be back."

"Yeah. That's fine, Scott." The sheriff waved him off, and he ducked out of there as fast as he could.

He was determined to follow through with his plan until he actually stepped onto Lydia's porch. He knocked on the front door, heart pounding, and he suddenly lost everything he had in mind to say.

Luckily, it wasn't her who opened the door; it was her mother. It gave him a few moments to recollect himself.

"Hello, Scott," she said softly. Lately, she hadn't been nice to anyone in the pack, but it seemed she knew better than to be snarky.

"Mrs. Martin." He nods. "I have something to give Lydia. I won't stay if she doesn't want me to. I just… I need to give this to her."

"She's up in her room," Mrs. Martin said, opening the door to let him in.

He ducked his head as he walked past her, a little surprised at her kindness. What truly shocked him was that she put her hand on his shoulder as he walked by. The gesture was almost overwhelming; tears sprang up behind his eyes, but he pushed them away. There would be plenty of time to let his pain out, but right then he needed to be strong for Lydia. He could hear her heart beating before he set foot on the stairs. It wasn't fast, but it was distressed, and the chemo signals pushed against him as he walked down the hallway like soundwaves. Grief.

He knocked softly on the door, and retracted his wolf senses. Sometimes – most of the time – he heard things without even trying, but he pulled his powers back on purpose to let her grieve however she did in private.

"Who is it?" she called. Her voice was weak and wobbly, and it made his heart hurt.

"It's Scott."

She didn't answer for a long moment. Finally, she sniffled, and said, "Come in."

She was sitting on the floor, leaning back against her bed, clutching her pillow. Her face was bare of makeup, but her tears still left obvious streaks.

"I'll stay if you want me to stay," he said as he kneeled down next to her, "and I'll leave if you want me to leave. I just have something I need to give you."

She didn't turn her head or change her expression at all as she whispered, "What is it?"

"The sheriff and I are… going through Stiles' stuff… and… I found this, pinned to the board in his room."

He pressed the folded and tied-up piece of paper into her hand. She didn't even look at it, and her face still crumbled.

"Scott, I don't think I can take it," she said through her tears.

"I think… that you don't have to read it, or even look at it… if you don't want to. Don't do anything with it if you don't think you can. I think you should take it, though… You know, don't… refuse it, or throw it in the trash or anything like that."

She took a long, deep breath, and he wondered if she'd still refuse it, but then she nodded and closed her hand around the paper.

"Do you want me to stay, or should I leave?" he whispered.

"Stay," she breathed, so softly he wouldn't have heard it if he wasn't a werewolf.

Wordlessly, he sat down next to her, and wrapped his arms around her. She buried her face in his chest, and he held her as tightly as he could.

"Stay with me until I fall asleep," she whispered.

"Of course," he mumbled back.

It didn't take long. It seemed all she needed to be able to face sleep was the physical comfort of a friend, and as her breathing steadied and her heartbeat slowed, he wondered if she knew or had ever known how much Stiles would've wanted to be in his place… how Stiles would've dropped everything, night after night, to do exactly that.

" _He still likes her, doesn't he?"_

" _Yeah."_

After about an hour, when he was confident she was completely asleep, he gently picked her up and laid her in her bed, securing her pillow underneath her head and covering her up warmly with her blankets. He found a pack of index cards on the floor by her open backpack, and grabbed a pen out of his pocket. He left the note on her nightstand, where she'd find it as soon as she opened her eyes, and just before he left to go back to Stiles' house, he kissed the top of her head.

#

When Lydia opened her eyes, the first thought that ran through her head was, _Stiles is dead._

The second was something she echoed to herself more often than he probably could've ever imagined.

 _You know how I'll feel? I'll be devastated. And if you die, I will literally go out of my freaking mind._

"Why'd you do it, Stiles?" she whispered, and all of a sudden she was crying again, and all she could think was that he told her she was beautiful even when she cried, and within a minute of waking up, she was crying so hard she could barely breathe.

She sat up, clutching something in her hand, and when she looked at it, she sobbed even harder.

"Oh, God, I need help," she cried. "I need – I need help, I need –"

She was so desperate that she thought to scream, but then she noticed an index card with a familiar scrawl on her nightstand.

" _Please, call me if you need anything. -Scott"_

She didn't have to scream – all she had to do was call. She picked up her phone, but… she didn't call Scott.

Ten minutes later, he knocked on her bedroom door.

"Jordan?" she called.

"Yeah," he said, opening the door cautiously. "It's me."

She reached for him, and he reached for her, and she couldn't deny how good it felt to be enveloped in his arms. She felt safe from all harm imaginable… except the overwhelming grief that was suffocating her.

"Shh," he whispered, stroking her hair as he held her to his chest. "Shh… I got you."

"He's dead, Jordan," she sobbed. "He's gone. Stiles is gone."

His response was to hold her tighter, and she loved that about him. He always knew what to do and what not to do. He knew there was nothing he could say that would make her feel better. She just needed his presence.

"I want to wake up," she sniffled. "This has to be a nightmare. I want to wake up."

"It's not a nightmare," he whispered into her hair. "It's not a nightmare, Lydia."

"But I dreamt it… I had the nightmare before it actually happened…"

"It's not a nightmare. It's real."

It wouldn't make anyone else feel better to be told their pain is indeed real, she thought to herself, but she guessed it would make it easier to process if she knew for certain there was no refuting his death.

She didn't know how long they sat like that, but he shifted his weight and brought her out of her thoughts.

"What is this?" he asked, taking the hand that still held on to Stiles' note.

"Something he left me," she whispered.

"Have you read it yet?"

She shook her head, and a fresh wave of tears cascaded down her cheeks.

"Do you want to?"

She nodded.

"Do you want to wait or read it now?"

"Read it now," she said softly, like a child.

"Do you want me to read it with you or would you rather be by yourself?"

"With me."

He helped her untie the red string, and he held her shaking hands as she read. She couldn't help admiring his unwavering consideration and gentlemanliness, but as she read Stiles' painful confession of unrequited love, it felt wrong to even be in the same room as him.

By the end, she was sobbing uncontrollably again – partly from the pain of his death, partly from the shame that she never truly realized how purely and unconditionally he loved her, and partly from the guilt.

By loving Jordan and overlooking Stiles, she'd driven him to death – and she was cradled in the former's arms as she read the latter's suicide note.

Without warning, her stomach lurched, and she barely made it to her adjoining bathroom before she threw up.

Jordan seemed to hesitate for a moment, but he followed her to the bathroom and held her hair back.

"What have I done, Jordan?" she whimpered as she sat back on the floor. "What have I done?"

"Lydia, listen to me," he said, putting both hands on her shoulders and looking into her eyes. She noticed with a start that he was crying, too. "Listen to me. This is not your fault. There were a million other things going through Stiles' mind. I don't think he was blaming you, and I don't think you were the sole cause of this. I don't think he was blaming you for any of it at all. Notice that he didn't point the finger or say a single negative word throughout that entire note. It wasn't malicious at _all_."

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying he wanted you to know, even in death, even in the pain he was in to want to take his own life… he loved you, Lydia."

She wiped her mouth with the toilet paper he handed her, and as she turned the roll over and over in her hands, she realized something – and she realized that she knew it the whole time. She knew it every day she knew him.

"I loved him, Jordan," she breathed.

"Pardon?"

"I loved him!" she cried, and covered her face with her hands. "I loved him!"

He held her, again, as she cried, again, and when she was spent, she looked up at him, questions in her eyes she couldn't quite put in words yet.

"I know you did. I always knew you did, and so did everyone else."

"How does… How does that make you feel?"

"It makes me sad for you, Lydia," he whispered. "You lost someone you loved. It makes me sad."

"Jordan, that's not what I mean."

"Well, that's what _I_ mean. I'm not upset. I have some pretty deep feelings for you, and I want to be with you, but I understand. I could never do as much for you as he did. I could never be the person for you that he could've been."

She leaned back against his chest and stared at the tapestry on her wall until the intricate crisscross pattern hurt her eyes and blurred her vision. "So what do I do now?"

"Go to Kira's house tonight with the rest of your pack. Be with your friends. Lean on each other during this time, and heal."

"Jordan!" she snapped, frustrated that he wasn't answering her questions.

"That is what's important right now. Figuring out what you're gonna do with your kind-of boyfriend isn't, not to me. What's important is that you find support and love in your friends… your family… your pack. The rest… we'll figure out later. So go see your friends tonight. I'll be waiting if you come back to me… and if you don't… then it's okay."

He helped her stand up, and like the gentleman he was, advised her to shower, drink lots of water, eat something healthy, and watch a TV show or read a book she enjoyed to feel better as much as she possibly could. He gave her a long, tight hug, kissed the top of her head, told her to text or call if she ever needed help again, and then he was gone.

She stared at the red string in her hand, and looked in the mirror.

 _Death doesn't happen to you, Lydia. It happens to everyone around you, okay? To all the people left standing at your funeral, trying to figure out how they're gonna live the rest of their lives now without you in it._

"We're going to make it, Stiles," she whispered. "I hate you for doing this to us, but we're going to make it. We're going to keep ourselves together because you were always the one who tried the hardest to keep the pack intact. We're going to do it for you."

#

She didn't know how when she said the words, but Scott told them all that night.

"Be your own anchor," he urged them all. "We're all wondering how we're going to go on without Stiles… and I'm just as lost as you guys are when it comes to that, believe me… but if we go our whole lives depending on people to lead us, then we will _always_ be lost. We have each other, and that's great, but… we have to be our own anchors."

He brought a bottle of scotch for the occasion, and poured a shot for all six of them. He raised his glass and said, "For Stiles."

"For Stiles," Mason echoed, holding up his glass.

"For Stiles," Liam whispered.

"For Stiles," Kira said, managing a tiny smile.

"For Stiles," Malia murmured, teary-eyed.

Lydia held up her glass, swearing she saw Stiles' whiskey eyes in the glass. She probably did, she told herself. She was a banshee, after all… a harbinger of death.

"For Stiles."


End file.
